I realize that asking for new features when the project has stagnated is cheeky, but I wanted to get them down somewhere in any case. Maybe someday someone will pick them up. (BTW, sairuk, I love the work you have done on MahCade, I switched to using that. I've been using what is up on the bzr tip).

* Curved games list. Similar to Hyperspin or Mala. Set the radius of the curve. * font scaling in game lists the selected item is largest, and scales down towards the ends. scaling is adjustable. * font gradient in game lists, color transitions from the ends to the selected item in the center. Selected can still have a separate color/bg. * user definable image / animation layers. Would be nice if I could layer more elements to create overlays and what not. Support animated gifs and PNG with full alpha in these layers. * Ability to set the z-order of the layers. * event sounds (list up/down, list select, game start, game end)* make the emulator / list selection full screen, support screenshots of systems, even have custom skins like the game lists do.

I know these ideas will break compatibility with MameWah, but I've always felt that it was pointless to maintain compatibility with it.

laxdragon wrote:* Curved games list. Similar to Hyperspin or Mala. Set the radius of the curve.* font scaling in game lists the selected item is largest, and scales down towards the ends. scaling is adjustable.* font gradient in game lists, color transitions from the ends to the selected item in the center. Selected can still have a separate color/bg.

I don't think Python would support these.

laxdragon wrote:* user definable image / animation layers. Would be nice if I could layer more elements to create overlays and what not. Support animated gifs and PNG with full alpha in these layers.* make the emulator / list selection full screen, support screenshots of systems, even have custom skins like the game lists do.

The layout editor is pretty powerful. Have you not spent a lot of time with it? I have never tried using animated GIFs, but image layers with transparency is fully supported. Sairuk has a pretty lengthy page on Wah!ki about it (see: Layout Editor:Layering & Transparency).

You can make your list as big as you want, even full screen. As for system screen shots, I just make these part of the skin, and I have a different skin for each system.

Keep dreaming. Zombie and I have been barking up that tree for a couple of years now.

I am starting to agree that maintaining MameWah compatibility is probably not the best goal. I'd guess that the original developer chose this route just to get a Mame frontend on the Linux scene, as there weren't really any others at the time, and cloning MameWah seemed like an easy way to go. Now that the Linux emulation community's needs are changing, Wah!Cade is starting to drop the ball. It's not likely that any of these enhancement requests will become reality in the foreseeable future.

If you're interested in a "pretty" frontend on Linux with a curved list, try Googling "Cabrio FE". It's a pretty promising frontend with all the frills you mention, but it's pretty buggy and not as customizable at this point.

laxdragon wrote:BTW, sairuk, I love the work you have done on MahCade, I switched to using that. I've been using what is up on the bzr tip.

Thanks laxdragon, glad you are enjoying it.

* Curved games list. Similar to Hyperspin or Mala. Set the radius of the curve. * font scaling in game lists the selected item is largest, and scales down towards the ends. scaling is adjustable. * font gradient in game lists, color transitions from the ends to the selected item in the center. Selected can still have a separate color/bg. * user definable image / animation layers. Would be nice if I could layer more elements to create overlays and what not. Support animated gifs and PNG with full alpha in these layers. * Ability to set the z-order of the layers.

Most of this would probably be possible if the project converted completely to pygame; an idea which has been around for a while. I mean to add a test gui written completely in pygame to ezLauncher.

* event sounds (list up/down, list select, game start, game end)

This is doable in the current code, how well it would work I have no idea. I've meant to attend to this request already, personally I only really run a basic Mah!Cade setup these days so motivation to add all the bells and whistles isn't really there.

* make the emulator / list selection full screen, support screenshots of systems, even have custom skins like the game lists do.

Layout editor should allow you to re-size the options window to be full screen; admitted I haven't tried it but I don't recall seeing any code that would stop itCustom skins can be done already, see the docs

I know these ideas will break compatibility with MameWah, but I've always felt that it was pointless to maintain compatibility with it.

I have added sound support to the latest bzr commit; it is highly unstable until gst_media.py gets a rewrite. Previously .... occasionally when using media you will see a parachute error; this occurs regularly with the addition of the sound support.

To use sounds:• Music must be enabled and working (the actual mp3 for the music need not exist).• Create a sounds sub-directory in the layout folder• Add an audio file type supported by Wah!Cade (i.e. mp3, ogg, flac) into the sounds folder named as per the list below

Use the list below as filename to trigger audio for events in Mah!Cade bzr-91

I managed to stabilise the media support in Mah!Cade tonight. No more crashing for me under Ubuntu 10.04, Python 2.6. Running with background audio, videos & navigation sounds. Windows on the other hand .... bleh

Wow! Honestly, I didn't expect anything to come of this thread. I'm excited to see some continued development.

I'll try out the tip soon. On that note, bzr is a real pain. Any chance we could get this project moved over to Github. I prefer git myself and find it better for maintaining projects with multiple branches.

laxdragon wrote:On that note, bzr is a real pain. Any chance we could get this project moved over to Github. I prefer git myself and find it better for maintaining projects with multiple branches.

I've been wanting to move it for a while, personally most of my experience is with subversion although i have wanted to play with git. I just don't have the time atm to sit down and look at it.

'mahcade' is only on bzr to assist Andy with merging any of the updates across into the main project. I may pull mahcade into something else so it has its own ticketing system since I do not want to break the good reputation wahcade has based on changes I have done. This is the only reason i call it 'mahcade' atm, makes it easier for people to post problems here, i don't like the way bzr links bug reports to branches .. or in fact doesn't??? I can't seem to see a clear way to report them based solely on branch anyway.

I see archlinux had a 'mahcade-bzr' package which has been renamed to 'wahcade-bzr' using my branch. I guess I'm not succeeding in keeping that difference as obvious as I would like . It may not be worth the effort; i should probably read the bzr manual properly relating to reporting bugs against branches.

There exists an exit and shutdown command already, but it doesn't really work because you can't do that in user land. All this would require is an exit and suspend. command to be added. Timed button presses are a different matter.

sairuk, played with the new tip. Love the new sound code! Works great in my testing.

Just some additional things. Is it possible for the up_1_game and down_1_game sounds to repeat when the list scrolls fast. As it is right now, the sound is only played when you tap the keys slowly. Not sure if there is limitations to sounds overlapping here.

Also, can we get an exit_game sound? This should be triggered when wahcade regains focus after a launched emulator exits. In my case, I want to use the Qbert ByeBye clip for this.

laxdragon wrote:sairuk, played with the new tip. Love the new sound code! Works great in my testing.

Just some additional things. Is it possible for the up_1_game and down_1_game sounds to repeat when the list scrolls fast. As it is right now, the sound is only played when you tap the keys slowly. Not sure if there is limitations to sounds overlapping here.

Also, can we get an exit_game sound? This should be triggered when wahcade regains focus after a launched emulator exits. In my case, I want to use the Qbert ByeBye clip for this.

I've been looking at why It doesn't repeat, I cannot find a way to do that atm, it is probably they way i've implemented threading. I think if i get it to work scrolling speed may be affected which isn't a good idea. 'Technically' it does play the sound on every key press based on how it is implemented but the clip 'stop' command is triggered before the clip is finished due to the speed of the scroll. I will have to look at some examples perhaps of other implementations of the same feature.

and exit game sound should be possible, just need to find the right spot in the code, will plan to have it in r98.

Zombie wrote:There exists an exit and shutdown command already, but it doesn't really work because you can't do that in user land. All this would require is an exit and suspend. command to be added. Timed button presses are a different matter.

Hmmm, timed button presses. Cannot think of how best to implement, at least it is not obvious too me atm I will have to think about where the configuration options would lie, the code should be relatively simple.